Friday, December 30, 2016
Final post
A new job in the field of energy based on nano-materials is taking me back to the core of environmental sciences, but sadly outside the field of water related hazards (for the most part). That is why this will be the final post in this blog for the time being. Let's do our best to prepare for the days yet to come!
Friday, December 23, 2016
News in Japan - December
USA
Netherlands
Dutch coast ‘superstorm’ proof for the next 50 years The embankments that protect the marina have been topped with Xblocs to break high waves. Xbloc is an innovative concrete armour unit which has been developed by Dutch contractor BAM - under its trade name Delta Marine Consultants - for shore protection and breakwaters. Xblocs have a high hydraulic stability and requires considerably less concrete compared to other armouring systems and furthermore the units can be placed faster. This is the first time Xblocs have been used along the Dutch coast.
PhD-student experimented with 10.000 plastic river plants in waterlab, the Netherlands In the main channel of the waterlab at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, PhD-student Andrés Vargas-Luna simulated the shaping of rivers including the effects of vegetation. He did this by putting 10.000 small plastic plants in the channel. "Problems arise when trying to calculate their extension as there are no models for this. It is often assumed that the land that erodes from one bank, expands the other. I want to know which role vegetation plays in the development of riverbanks.” The outcomes of his research emphasize the relevance of considering the effects of vegetation on the river management and on the designing, planning and maintaining of restoration projects.
Other
Most UK coastal flooding caused by moderate, not extreme storms The researchers also identified four main storm track pathways approaching the UK (mainly from the westerly and northerly directions) and four broad corresponding footprints of extreme sea level events (four sections, which together, make up most of Britain's mainland coastline). Clustering of storms, such as happened during the 2013 -- 14, or even 2015 -- 16 season, is an important issue. It can lead to large socioeconomic impacts and cumulative insurance losses. Before now, knowledge of this area has been limited, but our study will help better inform flood management, the insurance sector, and national emergency and infrastructure resilience planning to minimise the impact of successive storm events. The team has also developed a new database of coastal flooding for the UK called 'SurgeWatch' (http://www.surgewatch.org) which contains records, including photographs, of coastal flooding events over the last 100 years.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
Joso flood - ICHARM publication
My colleagues have just published an article in the Journal of Disaster Research, titled "The 2015 Flood Impact due to the Overflow and Dike Breach of Kinu River in Joso City, Japan" (doi: 10.20965/jdr.2016.p1112). You can access the full article for free by registering on the website for free as a member. This article discusses not only the geographic features making the area prone to flooding, but also the lead time to evacuation per district.
Abstract:
Heavy rainfall in September 2015 inundated the Kinu River basin and caused an overflow and dike breach of the river in the eastern part of Joso City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. The area, which is bounded by the Kinu and Kokai Rivers, experienced deep inundation of more than 2.5 m, which continued for more than 3 days at the maximum level. Although the estimated maximum inundation depth and duration were basically related to the elevation and distribution of topographic surfaces, strong flood flow washed buildings away near the overflow and dike breach sites and caused deep inundation even though these sites were located on a relatively higher natural levee. In addition, serious damages such as interruption of emergency transportation routes and deep inundation over floor level occurred, isolating evacuation centers and important facilities including a municipal hall and hospitals. Few residents utilized the pre-prepared flood hazard map or understood the local geography, and evacuation orders were not fully transmitted to the local residents, which might have increased the flood’s impact.
Abstract:
Heavy rainfall in September 2015 inundated the Kinu River basin and caused an overflow and dike breach of the river in the eastern part of Joso City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. The area, which is bounded by the Kinu and Kokai Rivers, experienced deep inundation of more than 2.5 m, which continued for more than 3 days at the maximum level. Although the estimated maximum inundation depth and duration were basically related to the elevation and distribution of topographic surfaces, strong flood flow washed buildings away near the overflow and dike breach sites and caused deep inundation even though these sites were located on a relatively higher natural levee. In addition, serious damages such as interruption of emergency transportation routes and deep inundation over floor level occurred, isolating evacuation centers and important facilities including a municipal hall and hospitals. Few residents utilized the pre-prepared flood hazard map or understood the local geography, and evacuation orders were not fully transmitted to the local residents, which might have increased the flood’s impact.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
News in Japan - November
USA:
Mississippi River could leave farmland stranded
Mississippi River could leave farmland stranded
If the Mississippi River continues to go unchecked, the farmland on Dogtooth Bend peninsula may be only accessible by boat. According to a University of Illinois study, each successive flood carves a deeper channel across the narrow neck of the peninsula. This floodwater shortcut threatens to permanently reroute the Mississippi River, leaving Dogtooth Bend an island rather than a peninsula. Repeatedly repairing the levee breaches, building a bridge over the shortcut created by the flooding, or letting the Mississippi chart its own course are some solutions to the problem.
Netherlands:
New Dutch drama, ‘if the levees breach’: http://www.npo.nl/series/artikelen/als-de-dijken-breken
Website visualizing floods in the Netherlands: http://www.overstroomik.nl/
Cadzand-Beach most closely resembles
Omaha Beach (Dutch) For the
first time enormous Xblocs, an innovation of construction consortium BAM, are
applied in the Netherlands. They must protect the hinterland from so-called
super storms that may arise from a combination of sea level rise and climate
change. The probability of such a super storm is 1 percent in a hundred years.
That seems low, but without proper protection the flood damages can amount to
more than one hundred billion euro. The three-dimensional shapes can be linked
to each other similar to Lego-blocks, so that the connection of the resulting dam
becomes extra strong. But by the openness persisting between the Xblocs, the
barrier absorbs the enormous power of the super waves instead of being averted.
The slender palisades also reduces the required material. A ‘small’ Xbloc
consists of 1.5 cubic meters of concrete, a large one of 4 cubic meters. That
is only one-third of the material which would be required for massive concrete
blocks of the same size. "The gaps between the Xblocs creates space for
all kinds of marine life. Small micro-organisms can settle here, but also fish
and crabs find shelter. We considered mixing the concrete with shell grit, so
that a large surface would be created with better adherence, but that was really
too expensive." Research at Rijkswaterstaat in 2003 showed that the force
with which the waves hit the shore is greater than previously thought. At nine
locations along the Dutch coast dunes or dikes had to be reinforced to be able
to withstand a superstorm. When Minister Schultz van Haegen (Infrastructure and
Environment) formally closed the work in Cadzand today, all the weak links will
have been restored.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Minor earthquake and tsunami
This morning we were awoken by an earthquake of magnitude 7.3, shindou 5- off the coast of Fukushima with some small aftershocks. Our phones immediately gave off tsunami warnings (1-3 meter). Several coastal towns have received evacuation warnings.
This map shows the locations and heights of tsunami waves in cm measured according to the JMA:
Friday, October 28, 2016
News in Japan - October
USA
Other
Watersheds
Lost Up to 22% of Their Forests in 14 Years. Here’s How it Affects Your Water
Supply High erosion deteriorates water quality and reduces reservoir
capacity, increasing the cost of water treatment and the risk of contamination.
High erosion risk is usually linked to erodible soil, intense rainfall, steep
topography and conversion of forest and other natural lands to pasture,
cropland and more.
How
fast will we need to adapt to climate change? Using sea-level rise as a
case study, researchers at Carnegie's Department of Global Ecology have
developed a quantitative model that considers different rates of sea-level
rise, in addition to economic factors, and shows how consideration of rates of
change affect optimal adaptation strategies. If the sea level will rise slowly,
it could still make sense to build near the shoreline, but if the sea level is
going to rise quickly, then a buffer zone along the shoreline might make more
sense. "It is a very different thing to adapt to a sea level that is three
feet higher if you think that sea level will rise no farther after that, than
to adapt to a sea-level rise that is three feet higher with the expectation
that the seas will keep rising," remarked Soheil Shayegh, a former
Carnegie postdoc and lead author of the study.
Reservoirs
play substantial role in global warming The world's reservoirs are an
underappreciated source of greenhouse gases, producing the equivalent of
roughly 1 gigaton of carbon dioxide a year, or 1.3 percent of all greenhouse
gases produced by humans.
Evaluating
forecasting models for predicting rainfall from tropical cyclones more than
50 percent of the deaths associated with hurricanes from 1970 to 2004 were
caused by fresh water flooding. And from 1981 to 2011, hurricane damage
accounted for almost half -- $417.9 billion -- of the total monetary damage
from all weather and climate disasters during that same time period (adjusted
for inflation to 2011 dollars). Current models can forecast both where and how
much rainfall a tropical cyclone will produce up to two days in advance.
However, the forecast's accuracy decreased significantly when the prediction
window increased to five days.
Hurricane
Matthew is just the latest unnatural disaster to strike Haiti At least
1,000 people were killed when Hurricane Matthew battered the Tiburon peninsula
in Haiti last week, destroying houses and displacing tens of thousands. Other
experts describe disasters as “manifestations of unresolved development
problems”. Therefore, disasters are not a natural phenomenon. Humans play a
central role. As a result, a natural hazard such as Hurricane Matthew impacts
each country in its path differently. We know that development, imposed by
external forces that exploit the local labour force is not in the interest of
the marginalised. A failure to respect human rights, local needs, the
environment and human-environment relations simply creates disaster risk.
Scientists
find link between tropical storms and decline of river deltas Lead
researcher Professor Stephen Darby of the University of Southampton said: “Our
study is the first to show the significant role tropical storms play in
delivering sediment to large river deltas.
We show that although human impacts affect the amount of sediment in a
river – cyclonic activity is also a very important contributing factor. These
results are very significant because the Mekong’s sediment load is already
declining as a result of upstream damming and other human impacts such as sand
mining. Understanding the role played by changes in tropical cyclone
climatology gives us a broader knowledge of the threats facing this delta and
others like it around the world.”
Receding
glaciers in Bolivia leave communities at risk A new study published in The
Cryosphere, an European Geosciences Union journal, has found that Bolivian
glaciers shrunk by 43% between 1986 and 2014, and will continue to diminish if
temperatures in the region continue to increase. "On top of that, glacier
recession is leaving lakes that could burst and wash away villages or
infrastructure downstream," says lead-author Simon Cook, a lecturer at the
Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Pressure and Release (PAR) model, part 3
Our students this year are a diverse group of meteorologists, engineers, government officers, hydrologists, dam operators, infrastructure analysts, and researchers, coming from Brazil, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Timor-Leste and Vietnam. As such we received a great diversity of suggestions during the interactive part of the lecture. For this part, I divided the students in three groups to each work on a different type of flood affecting the Netherlands: oceanic storm surges, river floods, and heavy precipitation.
The goal of the exercise was to develop safe conditions for each type of flood, as integrated in the PAR model. This would allow students to actively familiarize themselves with the PAR model as preparation for their course assignments, stimulate group discussions, and have them consider the cross-cultural transferability of disaster risk reduction measures.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Pressure and Release (PAR) model, part 2
To prepare students for their PAR model exercise, I explained briefly about the conditions in the Netherlands and the three types of flood we might face. Below is a selection of the presented slides.
I developed a pressure model for floods in the Netherlands as shown below (click to enlarge). It was up to the students to develop safe conditions to increase the progression of safety, countering a different type of flood in the Netherlands.
Pressure and Release (PAR) model, part 1
Along with now graduated Dr. Nasif Ahsan, I was invited to give a lecture to our new M.Sc. students as part of the course "Basic Concepts of Integrated Flood Risk management (IFRM)". This part of the course centers around the Pressure and Release (PAR) model, as developed by Ben Wisner, Piers Blaikie, Terry Cannon, and Ian Davis in their publication "At Risk: natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters" (Routledge, London & NY, 2004).
The concept behind the PAR model is that disasters occurs when societal vulnerability coincides with (natural) hazards.The only way to reduce risk is reduction of vulnerability, rather than the hazard itself. This concept is explained in the images below.
For the lecture we each focused on how the PAR model could be applied to our home countries, Bangladesh and the Netherlands. I added an interactive component in which the students developed their own version of the PAR model for floods in the Netherlands.
Friday, September 30, 2016
News in Japan - September
Japan
It seemed to miss
Japan altogether before coming back with a vengeance:
USA
Other
How
plant roots sense, react to soil flooding Researchers
have just discovered a mechanism that allows a plant to adjust its water status
and growth according to different soil flooding conditions. The results of this
study describe how roots sense and respond to soil oxygen and potassium levels
jointly, so as to change their water uptake capacity. Aside from their
scientific importance, these findings could make it possible to optimize crop
flood tolerance.
http://aqua-monitor.appspot.com/
Vulnerable people
Floods
severely affect children, young people Research
with flood-affected children reveals serious impacts on well-being but also a
desire to take on a role in flood risk management. Factors impacting on
children's well-being include: loss of valued personal and family possessions,
friendship networks, familiar spaces, education; experience of fear, anxiety,
poverty, isolation, unfairness, destruction, stress, uncertainty, being
ignored/misunderstood; lack of sleep and recreation; deterioration in diet,
space and housing conditions; lack of flood education provision in schools for
children and all staff. The study shows that having an active role in flood
risk management actually helps with children's recovery. Yet current flood and
emergency planning policy either ignores children or positions them as
'vulnerable', rather than treating them as citizens in their own right. The
report proposes children should be given more information before, during and
after flooding because they have a right to know how to prepare, what to expect
and how they can contribute.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
News in Japan - August
USA
Adaptation to climate risks: Political
affiliation matters. Study takes into account perceptions of New York City
residents after Superstorm Sandy A new study reveals that those who affiliate with the Democratic Party
have different views than those who vote Republican on the following issues:
the likelihood of floods occurring, adopting protection measures, and
expectations of disaster relief from the government. Key findings:
- Democrats' perception of their probability of experiencing flood damage is significantly higher than Republicans'. They are also more likely to expect climate change to increase the flood risk they face in the future.
- Democrats are also more likely to invest in individual flood protection measures.
- Less than half of Democrats and a third of Republicans trust the government to address the flood risk posed in their area of residence.
- 50% more Democrats than Republicans in the study expect to receive federal disaster relief after a major flood.
Hurricanes are worse, but experience, gender and politics determine if you believe it Despite ample evidence that Atlantic hurricanes are getting stronger, research found that people's view of future storm threat is based on their hurricane experience, gender and political affiliation. This could affect how policymakers and scientists communicate the increasing deadliness of hurricanes as a result of climate change.
Other
New meta-analysis shows engineered hard
shorelines are a threat to ecosystems (global) Hardened
shorelines reduce species diversity, abundance. "Biodiversity was 23%
lower along shorelines with seawalls when compared with that of natural
shorelines," observed the authors. Moreover, Gittman and her colleagues
noted that overall organism abundance was 45% lower in seawalled areas. One
potentially encouraging finding was that biological diversity and the abundance
of organisms were not demonstrably altered by other forms of shoreline
hardening, such as riprap and breakwaters. The authors report that "some
shore-protection structures may serve as surrogate habitats for native epibiota
where natural hard substrates, such as oyster reefs and mussel beds, have been
lost to overharvest, erosion, and poor water quality." However, Gittman
and her colleagues caution that such structures may enable invasive species or
have other unintended consequences.
Friday, August 5, 2016
Published paper
The Journal of Disaster Research has published an article by Nasif Ahsan, myself, and others, titled "A Systematic Review of the Factors Affecting the Cyclone Evacuation Decision Process in Bangladesh". It is freely available at the JDR website, after creating a free account.
Abstract
Researchers are investigating a broad spectrum of factors affecting positively and/or negatively the evacuation decision-making process occurring after people at risk receive cyclone warnings and advisories. Previous studies suggest that early warnings themselves do not propagate evacuation processes to be investigated but, rather, that human risk perceptions do so. This in turn encourages the socio-psychological dimensions of risk perception to be evaluated, which must be done within a country’s own cultural context. In applying content analysis here, we review the literature on evacuation decision-making processes during rapid onset hazards, i.e., tropical cyclones, in coastal Bangladesh. We focus on three broad overlapping themes – early warning, risk perception, and evacuation decision-making. Major content-analysis findings suggest that two things – a lack of credibility in early warning messages and an inefficient dissemination process – tend to affect the risk perception of people at risk and are likely to eventually determine the success of evacuation decision-making. Findings also show that different socioeconomic and socio-cultural issues related to risk perception appear to be more influential than formal warning messages in propagating decisions to evacuate during a cyclone. Based on these results, we suggest specific policy recommendations for improving local evacuation efficiency.
Journal ref: Journal of Disaster Research, August 2016, 11(4), 742-753
Received: 31 May 2016
Accepted: 14 July 2016
Released: 1 August 2016
DOI: 10.20965/jdr.2016.p0742
Impact Factor pending
Friday, July 29, 2016
News in Japan - July
Japan
Joso city video and fund raiser (Japanese)
USA
Scientists release recommendations for building land in coastal Louisiana Sediment diversions should be operated on a pulse that mimics the natural flood cycle of the Mississippi River, which includes taking full advantage of winter flood peaks from November through February when the greatest concentration of sediment is available in the river to sustain the coastal wetlands, as well as operating in the spring when sand needed for building land is at its highest. Operations plans should include robust monitoring and flexibility for adjustments based on rapidly changing conditions, such as hurricanes and other events.
Mixed response: Floodwaters return to the Colorado River but can release greenhouse gases Deliberately flooding riverbeds left parched by dams has great potential to restore wetlands but may also have a significant unintended consequence: the release of greenhouse gases. When a large dry riverbed is flooded, these greenhouse gases are released into the water, and presumably to the atmosphere. However, re-wetting the delta may support the growth of native plants, which typically are better able to absorb and store carbon than invasive species, and may offset the carbon dioxide and methane released by flooding.
Netherlands
Other
Mitigating floods with an electronic brain Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are a biologically-inspired method of computing that can receive large amounts of data, find patterns, learn from them and then develop predictions for future events. They have been proposed as a useful tool to process the complex relationships between large amounts of data related to the transformation of rainfall into runoff. This relationship is one of the most difficult hydrological problems faced by water resource managers. Researchers at Universiti Putra Malaysia "taught" an ANN to predict daily runoff for the Bertam River into the Ringlet Reservoir 200 km north of Kuala Lumpur. They collected daily rainfall and stream flow data from the Bertam River catchment area over a ten-year period, from 2003 to 2012, and estimated daily water evaporation using temperature data collected from the nearest station to the reservoir. Seventy percent of this data was input into the model to "train" it while the remaining 30% of the data was used to test the model's accuracy using statistical evaluation measurements. The ANN was developed to map the relationship between rainfall and runoff. The more factors used, the more accurate the results. The ANN was able to predict river stream flow into the reservoir with 76% accuracy.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Published conference paper: The benefits of cyclones of ecosystem services
The 7th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research has published all reviewed extended abstracts, including our contribution on the topic "The Benefits of Cyclones as Ecosystem Services".
You can read the full version here on research gate.
You can read the full version here on research gate.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
News in Japan - June
USA
"Social and environmental cues influence behavior," said Sarah DeYoung, postdoctoral researcher at DRC who was the lead author of that paper and has just accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Georgia. "But we understand, too, the temporal nature of that," Davidson said. "It's not like people make a decision on Day 1 and follow through with that. They see what happens and change their minds, too."
Netherlands
https://twitter.com/Du_Knitter/status/738237664948834304/photo/1 Dutch A74 highway closed due to
flood/mudflow.
Other
Heavy rain in Germany leads to 4 deaths (Dutch) Over 40 people were rescued from life
threatening situations. One of the four victims was a male firefighter. The
weekend before 35 people were struck by lightning.
Thousands of evacuations due to floods in
France (Dutch) Over 5,500
people were evacuated, firefighters responded to 10,500 calls for help, and one
86 year old woman reportedly drowned.
El Nino made a nuisance of itself in 2015
Parts of Philippines may submerge due to global warming
New data set establishes global flood risks more accurately (Dutch)
Parts of Philippines may submerge due to global warming
New data set establishes global flood risks more accurately (Dutch)
Vulnerable people
Revamped labor guidelines to issue sterner warning
against LGBT discrimination (Japan)
News in Japan - June
USA
"Social and environmental cues influence behavior," said Sarah DeYoung, postdoctoral researcher at DRC who was the lead author of that paper and has just accepted a tenure-track position at the University of Georgia. "But we understand, too, the temporal nature of that," Davidson said. "It's not like people make a decision on Day 1 and follow through with that. They see what happens and change their minds, too."
Netherlands
https://twitter.com/Du_Knitter/status/738237664948834304/photo/1 Dutch A74 highway closed due to
flood/mudflow.
Other
Heavy rain in Germany leads to 4 deaths (Dutch) Over 40 people were rescued from life
threatening situations. One of the four victims was a male firefighter. The
weekend before 35 people were struck by lightning.
Thousands of evacuations due to floods in
France (Dutch) Over 5,500
people were evacuated, firefighters responded to 10,500 calls for help, and one
86 year old woman reportedly drowned.
El Nino made a nuisance of itself in 2015
Parts of Philippines may submerge due to global warming
New data set establishes global flood risks more accurately (Dutch)
Parts of Philippines may submerge due to global warming
New data set establishes global flood risks more accurately (Dutch)
Vulnerable people
Revamped labor guidelines to issue sterner warning
against LGBT discrimination (Japan)
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
ICWRER day 3
I presented today, on the final conference day of the International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research. But first we enjoyed a keynote speech from Mathias Kondolf from the University of California, Berkeley, who talked about "Maintaining and Restoring Sediment Load Downstream of Dams". This included the tedious and costly process of re-sedimentation on the Rhine river, and current geomorphic impacts on the Mekong Delta.
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
ICWRER day 2
The second day of the International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research in Kyoto featured two keynote speeches. The first, from Prof. Hubert Savenije from the Dutch Delft University of Technology, touched upon drought models and root zone storage. He explained how different drought models led to opposite results for the Netherlands, and a local model often functioned better than a global one. He further set out his theory how most of the traditional ground storage models did not account for root storage correctly. These models assume that plants would use the entire soil depth to grow roots in, when in practice this was not the optimal growth strategy for plants. In fact, especially in moist areas, there is no need for plants to have deep roots as they can already gather enough moisture from the top soil layer, and then invest more in growing above ground.
Monday, June 6, 2016
ICWRER day 1
The International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research opened on Sunday, June 5th with a welcome icebreaker. The actual conference was opened the next day with a keynote speech from Prof. Eiichi Nakakita from the Kyoto University, who spoke on the SOUSEI project, that ICHARM is also a part of, which has as goal to integrate research activities on climate change and natural hazards.
Another presentation of importance today was given by Guillermo Q. Tabios III, who chaired the topic of Sustainable Water Resources Management (G14). His presentation was titled "Multipurpose, Single High Dam versus Multiple Dam System for Balog-Balog Irrigation Project in the Philippines", and detailed the costs and water usages of several dams in the Philippines.
Friday, May 27, 2016
News in Japan - May
Japan:
80% of SDF big choppers couldn’t fly for Kumamoto mainly because they were undergoing emergency checks
Gov't to call for beefing up support for foreign visitors in disaster (Japan) Tourism organizations should get the picture of the locations of evacuation centers as well as hospitals that can accept foreigners, according to the planned request. The guidelines state examples of foreign language terms regarding evacuation and advice, and urge making use of volunteer interpreters and preparation of emergency meals that can be provided to Muslims.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Monetary Valuation Methods for the Benefits of Cyclones
The final step in this study was linking the benefits of cyclones as ecosystem services to known monetary valuation methods.
The benefits of cyclones and their corresponding ecosystem service types were linked to two sources containing valuation methods: 1) the conceptual matrix and example methods of ecosystem service valuation from Pascual & Muradian (2010), and 2) the near 1500 valuation methods from studies in The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) database (Van der Ploeg & De Groot, 2010). In these sources, the valuation methods corresponding to cyclone benefits were categorized into five different approaches: cost based, stated preference, production based, revealed preference, and benefit transfer. All identified benefits were considered from the perspective of benefit to humans in order to be valued, including certain benefits from literature that were not directly classified as beneficial to humans. In these systems, these five valuation approaches are described as follows:
• Cost based approaches depend on the estimation of the costs of recreating the service by artificial means.
• Stated preference approaches apply surveys about a market with demand for services and hypothetical policy changes in the availability of these services.
• Production based approaches estimate how much services improve resources or environmental qualities, lead to lower costs and prices of marketed goods, and thus enhance income or productivity.
• Revealed preference approaches are based on observing individual choices in existing markets and services that are related to the services requiring valuation.
• Benefit transfer approaches rely on the outcomes of a previous valuation from an area with a comparable ecosystem to the study area. If these two are comparable, the value can be transferred, or certain adjustments to reflect local circumstances can be applied.
The final results (see figure) show that the applied valuation methods for comparable services were mostly related to the identified provisioning services, and most of the valuation methods used were cost based, namely replacement costs, direct market pricing, and avoided costs.
Monday, May 16, 2016
The Benefits of Cyclones as Ecosystem Services
After the first step of identifying the known benefits of cyclones, we linked identified benefits from both literature and case studies to ecosystem services categories developed by the UNEP (2009). The accompanying definitions and examples of provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services are described as follows:
- Provisioning services are products obtained from ecosystems. Examples include food, freshwater, wood, fiber, genetic resources, medicines, energy, and fisheries.
- Regulating services help stabilize ecosystem processes and are benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes. Examples include climate regulation, natural hazard regulation, water regulation, water purification and waste treatment, and disease regulation.
- Supporting services underlie the production of all other ecosystem services and related to fundamental environmental processes. Impacts can be direct or indirect, and can occur over a long time. Examples include biomass production, production of atmospheric oxygen, soil formation and retention, nutrient cycling, primary production, water cycling, and provisioning of habitat.
- Cultural services are non-material benefits that people obtain from ecosystems, which could be recreational, spiritual, or religious variants. Examples include spiritual enrichment, intellectual development, reflection, religious experience, recreation, knowledge systems, social relations, aesthetic values, appreciation of nature, recreation, and ecotourism.
According to these definitions, we classified the benefits as in the image below:
Friday, May 6, 2016
The Benefits of Cyclones
It's been over a year since the World Water Forum in Korea, where one of the members of the typhoon committee argued the necessity of studying the benefits of cyclones, which I since then did. Preceding a presentation at the 7th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research in Kyoto, June 5-9, I here provide an overview of the literary findings of benefits of cyclones.
Cyclones often cause heavy damages and destruction to infrastructure and human lives, but the potential benefits of cyclones remain understudied. Several of these benefits could serve as an integral part of ecosystem based disaster risk reduction plans, when viewed as ecosystem services. For this purpose, we examined how the benefits of cyclones could be valued as ecosystem services. In phase one of this study, we scrutinized existing studies regarding potential benefits of cyclones.
The image shows a compilation of the 14 benefits of cyclones as described in the gathered studies on the topic, which we organized by approximate location (troposphere, biosphere, epipelagic zone) and order (cause and effect) of occurrence. More details follow after the break below.
Friday, April 29, 2016
News in Japan - April
GEJET:
Court dismisses demand to halt Sendai reactors A Japanese high court has dismissed a request by residents to suspend operations of 2 nuclear reactors at the Sendai nuclear plant in southwestern Japan. The Miyazaki branch of the Fukuoka High Court gave its decision on Wednesday.
USA:
5 Dead in Houston as Flash Floods Leave Thousands Stranded and Without Power All five victims were found inside vehicles submerged in high floodwaters. “Houston residents should avoid travel at all costs today.”
Disaster plans often neglect historic preservation (USA) In Florida, for instance, they found that 23% of the sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places are located in a 100-year floodplain. Most communities have not integrated historic preservation into their disaster management plans. Their survey of state hazard mitigation plans found just 40 percent included a representative from historic preservation on the core planning team while 60 percent did not. "Many disaster mitigation plans make no mention of historic resources," Rumbach said. "As more and more communities bank on historic resources to benefit the local economy, this needs to be remedied." Economics aside, he said, many communities draw a sense of identity from these historic sites and can become unmoored when they are damaged or destroyed.
Netherlands:
Dutch public works department reinforces coastline at Zandvoort (Dutch) 2.4 million cubic meters of sand are being applied to the coast of Zandvoort and Bloemendaal. This previously happened in 2004 and 2008. The sand is deposited 750 meters from the beach at a depth of five meters. Wind, waves and currents then gradually spread the sand towards the beach. The work takes place over a length of 7.5 kilometers along the coastline, without disrupting beach visitors.
Snow in North of Netherlands and Randstad (Dutch) including fierce hail storms, leading to serious traffic accidents.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
Earthquake in South Japan - part 3: Landslides
A first analysis of
the landslides East of Kumamoto city have become available. The photos are
courtesy of Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd. (国際航業株), taken on 16 April 2016;
the maps are freely available from the Japanese GSI. These
maps and photos show the earthquake damage points of concern (平成２８年熊本地震災害で懸念される地震被害箇所), with a focus on river blocking by collapsed hill sides (河岸崩壊による河道閉塞箇所).
You can also view the before/after photos in a google earth type environment here, courtesy of the GSI. More pictures, videos and maps here. See also the 3D model of area #1 and this drone video of area #1.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Earthquake in South Japan - part 2
A second heavy earthquake has struck Kyushu island early Saturday morning, leading to more deaths. Below is an analysis of the earthquakes from the first 84 hours following the initial Thursday evening earthquake, along with an overview of the effects, combined with strong wind damages, and the earthquake in Ecuador.
How to help: Kumamoto quake info: where to go, how to help
| Shindou | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5- | 5+ | 6- | 6+ | 7 | Total |
| 2≤M<3 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19 |
| 3≤M<4 | 0 | 6 | 92 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 124 |
| 4≤M<5 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 41 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 57 |
| 5≤M<6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 11 |
| 6≤M<7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 7≤M<8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 0 | 7 | 124 | 69 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 217 |
For further analysis only earthquakes on Kyushu island were taken into account, and shindou (shaking intensity) 5- and 6- were counted as 5.0 and 6.0 whereas 5+ and 6+ were counted as 5.5 and 6.6 respectively.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Earthquake in South Japan
9 people are reported dead and over 750 injured after a shindou 7 earrthquake has struck Kyushu island. The list of heavy aftershocks in the 12 hours since the initial earthquake is long. The Public Works Research Institute is conducting a conference, serving as a disaster response headquarters.
Japantoday: The nine dead are three men and four women aged between 54-94 in Mashiki, and a 29-year-old man and 68-year-old woman in the Higashi Ward of Kumamoto City. As of 5 a.m., at least 765 people were being treated for injuries, of which 53 were serious, while about 44,400 people were taking shelter at about 500 sites in the prefecture, according to the prefectural government. The strong quake resulted in collapsed houses and fires in the prefecture, according to local authorities. No abnormalities have been found at the Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture or the Genkai nuclear power plant in nearby Saga Prefecture, according to operator Kyushu Electric Power Co and the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
News in Japan - March
GEJET:
Japan marks 5 years since the 3/11 disaster The Reconstruction Agency says at least 3,407 people died in 10 prefectures due to health problems and other reasons related to their lives as evacuees. The agency adds that as of February 12th, more than 174,000 people were living in temporary, rental or other housing as evacuees.
The Fukushima cleanup will take generations The cleanup team is still struggling to halt the buildup of contaminated water, and the techniques and equipment needed to locate, extract, and dispose of the melted fuel have yet to be developed. Given these challenges, many experts are convinced that the decommissioning process will take far longer than the official 40-year timetable-perhaps as long as a century. Rainwater and groundwater have continued to pour into the damaged basements of Units 1-4, where it mixes with the highly radioactive cooling water already inside the buildings. The pillars of TEPCO's water management efforts to date are two systems for channeling groundwater away from the contaminated basements and releasing it into the ocean relatively free of radioactive contaminants. One, the groundwater bypass system, collects water in wells dug between the reactor buildings and the hills to the west. The water is pumped up from the wells, tested, and eventually released into the ocean. The other, called the subdrain system, uses wells dug around the perimeter of the reactor buildings. So far, TEPCO has discharged some 230,000 tons of water into the ocean using these two methods combined. Even so, groundwater continues to pour into the buildings' basements at the rate of about 150 tons a day.
Lessons from Fukushima An RJIF study of hospital responses to the disaster found medical care for the afflicted was only able to continue at significantly reduced capacity because kizuna — social solidarity built upon people-to-people bonds, social networks and personal contacts — swung into action to mobilise armies of volunteers in forming the core engine of recovery. It was the residents of Fukushima who heroically banded together to manage the crisis. ‘[I]t is an unfortunate reality that in 2011 Japan had to resort to kizuna, even during the initial phase of crisis management, due to inadequate centralised management…Japan must now look beyond kizuna and build a crisis response apparatus that doesn’t overly rely on the goodwill of the Japanese people’. The people of Japan deserve better than having to rely on kizuna next time round. ‘To date, the NRA has received safety review applications for a total of 25 of the 43 existing commercial reactors’, Koppenborg reports. Commercial interests now have to face up to the NRA’s new regulatory teeth. It appears unlikely that further applications will be made and not all of these 25 applications can count on being successful. But ‘if Japan is to meet its goal of generating 20–22 per cent of its power through nuclear energy by 2030 it needs to reopen 30 reactors’, says Koppenborg. Richard Samuels argues that ‘perhaps the most striking development in the weeks and months after the devastation was how champions of existing institutions, practices, preferences and ideas — even those that failed so spectacularly and so indisputably — rallied to define the lessons that would be drawn. Political entrepreneurs from every corner framed the catastrophe to justify, legitimate, fortify and sell their pre-existing preferences. Japanese politics became a competition for control of who would define the heroes and the villains of the tragedy — and for the power to determine what would come next. Five years on, the 3.11 master narrative is still under construction’. This mindset is a key obstacle in the political gridlock that blocks improved disaster preparedness and strengthening Japan’s crisis management system as well as a more wholehearted approach to renewable energy sources.
Japan’s 3.11 master narrative still under construction In short, few agreed on policy alternatives, but everyone insisted that 3.11 proved they had been right all along. So where are we five years later? Were civic activists who argued that systemic dysfunctions in Japan can now be fixed correct? Or was one parliamentarian right when he suggested that 3.11, as colossal as it was, may not have been big enough to stimulate substantive institutional change? The evidence is mixed. The popularity of the Abe administration notwithstanding, opinion polls in the years after 3.11 suggest that the public is disillusioned with government. In 2013 large majorities reported that they believed reconstruction funds were wasted. Trust in government increased for a time, but recent data show that it has fallen and is below the global average.
Japan:
LDP to tackle 'taboo' of expanding foreign labor force Japan's ruling party kicks off a debate this month on whether to expand the pool of foreign workers to cope with a graying, shrinking population, challenging a longstanding "taboo" on immigration. But rather than rely on immigration, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to focus on drawing more women and elderly into the workforce to fill the gaps, and has made raising Japan's rock-bottom birthrate a priority. The only way to ensure growth was to increase the size of the workforce, Kimura said in an interview, adding that monetary and fiscal policies were reaching the limit of their capacity to spur growth.
USA:
Single By Choice: Why Fewer American Women Are Married Than Ever Before When I say "the choice to not marry," that doesn't always translate into "I am a woman and I am deciding that I am not going to get married," or "I am rejecting marriage." The choice to not marry can also mean: "I would really like to marry or to fall in love or to meet someone, but I haven't met someone who I feel is going to improve on the life that I am building and making on my own." One of the most startling statistics is that today only 20 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 are married, and that compares to 60 percent in 1960. The other figure that I find very startling, in part because it was so resilient for so long, is the median age of first marriage for women. From the time they started recording it — which was 1890 — until 1980, that median age of first marriage for women fluctuated only between 20 and 22. In 1990 it jumped to over 23, which is a huge jump from having been in that small range for so long. Today, for women, it is over 27. So if you're just looking at the sort of historical picture, there's this relatively flat line for almost 100 years and now there's not just a jump over that line, but way over that line.
Research will help policymakers plan for sea level rise (USA) A new study could help protect more than 13 million American homes that will be threatened by rising sea levels by the end of the century. It is the first major study to assess the risk from rising seas using year 2100 population forecasts for all 319 coastal counties in the continental US. Previous impact assessments use current population figures to assess long-term effects of coastal flooding.
Wetland enhancement in Midwest could help reduce catastrophic floods of the future (USA) New financial models and flood management policies may be needed to actually accomplish this. If just 1.5 percent of the land were used for wetlands, the peak flow of the overall watershed could be reduced by up to 17.5 percent.
Netherlands:
Other:
When sea levels rise, damage costs rise even faster A team of scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) now provides a method to quantify monetary losses from coastal floods under sea-level rise. For the first time, the scientists show that the damage costs consistently increase at a higher rate than the sea-level rise itself.
Citizen science to prevent the effects of floods (Spain) Researchers from UPM are involved in the development of a mobile phone application that allows user to share information about floods and their effects aiming to help researchers.
The best way to protect us from climate change? Save our ecosystems There is now clear evidence that intact forests have a positive influence on both planetary climate and local weather regimes. Forests also provide shelter from extreme weather events, and are home to a host of other valuable ecosystems that are important to human populations as sources of food, medicine and timber. In Vietnam, 12,000 hectares of mangroves have been planted at a cost of US$1.1 million, but saving the US$7.3 million per year that would have been spent on maintaining dykes. In Louisiana, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 led to an examination of how coastal salt marshes might have reduced some of the wave energy in the hurricane-associated storm surges. Data have now confirmed that salt marshes would have significantly reduced the impact of those surges, and stabilised the shoreline against further insult, at far less cost than engineered coastal defences. With this data in hand, discussions are now beginning around how to restore the Louisiana salt marshes to insulate against future extreme weather events.
Climate change is a potent element in the deadly brew of disaster risk Are we getting better at managing disasters, or are we actually reducing disaster risk? There is a significant difference between the two, and addressing that difference should have a profound impact on development. at least 90% of disasters linked to natural hazards are climate related. Mortality is declining in many places because of better disaster management andmore effective use of early warning systems. But more needs to be done to reduce risk comprehensively, including by tackling the compounding factors of poverty and inequality, rapid and unplanned urbanisation, damage to eco-systems, and poor risk governance. More national disaster loss databases to guide investments should be established.
Paris prepares for possible deluge similar to 1910 Great Flood More than 100 years ago, the Seine River rose 8m above its usual level following months of high rainfall, causing the catastrophe known as the Great Flood of Paris. There were no deaths but it took around 35 days for the water to clear.
Each year there is a one in 100 chance that a flood of that scale will occur in Paris again. The exercise will be carried out as if the river levels are rising by 50cm each day, allowing 900 emergency personnel, 150 police officers and 40 emergency vehicles to practice the necessary steps they will have to take. The exercise will also test how almost 90 public and private institutions such as hospitals, energy firms and waste disposal companies cope with the situation. “The difference between 1910 [and now] is that at that time we didn’t have telephone lines, the subway or electrics running underground. Now... if you have water [underground], everything will [go] down". The flood could cover an area measuring 500sq/km and affect the 830,000 people who live in the zone. More than 430,000 homes would be exposed to water as well as 100,000 businesses. Rectifying the damage could cost the city up to £15.5 billion.
Speeding up accuracy of flood risk assessment (Australia) The new method tested by the research team is aimed at providing a highly accurate assessment at a much faster rate. The method (known as hybrid causative events, or HCE) relies on an algorithm that knocks out all of the unnecessary information used by the slower, continuous simulation approach -- such as long, dry periods without rainfall. It might take another five years or so for this method to be available to industry.
Adaptation to increasing flood risk in Europe should aim to reduce impact Scientists investigated the benefits of four adaptation measures to reduce the increasing flood risk in Europe under state-of-the-art global warming projections under a high-end climate scenario. Adaptation measures include the rise of flood protections, reduction of the peak flows through water retention, reduction of vulnerability and relocation to safer areas. According to the study, adaptation efforts should favour measures targeted at reducing the impacts of floods, such as relocation and vulnerability reduction, rather than trying to avoid them. Reducing vulnerability includes early warning systems, dry and wet flood proofing, and floating buildings, among others. Conversely, adaptation plans only based on rising flood protections have the effect of reducing the frequency of small floods and exposing the society to less-frequent but catastrophic floods and potentially long recovery processes.
Can improved agricultural practices help combat climate change? Did you know that over half of global non-carbon dioxide (non-CO2) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are accountable to agriculture?
'Unprecedented' storms and floods are more common than we think (UK) They conclude that 21st-century flood events such as Storm Desmond are not exceptional or unprecedented in terms of their frequency or magnitude, and that flood frequency and flood risk forecasts would be improved by including data from flood deposits dating back hundreds of years. "Conventional methods of analysing river flow gauge records cannot answer these questions because upland catchments usually have no or very short records of water levels of around 30 or 40 years. In fact, recent careful scientific analysis of palaeoflood deposits (flood deposits dating back hundreds of years) in the UK uplands shows that 21st-century floods are not unprecedented in terms of both their frequency (they were more frequent before 1960) and magnitude (the biggest events occurred during the 17th–19th centuries)." Professor John Lewin from the University of Aberystwyth said: "What is needed, is far more resilience for already-developed floodplains, and much more serious insistence that future floodplain development should be virtually curtailed. Somewhere along the line floodplain development has been allowed by local authorities and the UK government to continue regardless."
Vulnerable people:
One-third of working women in Japan sexually harassed: study The study, released Tuesday and the first of its kind, examined responses from more than 9,600 women employees, submitted by mail or online. The response rate was 18%. Of the respondents, 29% said they had suffered sexual harassment. The most common type of harassment was having their appearance or age become the focus of conversation, at 54%. The next most common was unwanted touching at 40%, followed by sexually related questions at 38%. Twenty-seven percent were asked out for meals and dates.
Few women in higher management Netherlands (Dutch) Results from the report http://www.grantthornton.global/globalassets/wib_turning_promise_into_practice.pdf show that only 18% of positions in higher management are held by women in the Netherlands. Japan scores lowest of researched countries with 7%, and Russia highest with 45%.
Japan rejects U.N. panel view on 'comfort women' Japan rejected on Tuesday a U.N. panel's view that Tokyo should take into consideration the opinions of so-called comfort women in implementing a bilateral agreement reached with South Korea last year. "The (panel's) conclusion does not sufficiently reflect the Japanese government's explanation and is regrettable," Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women said Monday the agreement did not fully adopt a victim-centered approach to address the issue of women who were procured for Japan's wartime military brothels.
1 in 29 babies born in Japan in 2014 had non-Japanese parent The number of babies whose parents are both non-Japanese totaled about 15,000, compared with 20,000 who were born to Japanese and non-Japanese couples, according to the ministry data.
How People Learn to Become Resilient If you are lucky enough to never experience any sort of adversity, we won’t know how resilient you are. It’s only when you’re faced with obstacles, stress, and other environmental threats that resilience, or the lack of it, emerges: Do you succumb or do you surmount? Not all of the at-risk children reacted to stress in the same way. Two-thirds of them “developed serious learning or behavior problems by the age of ten, or had delinquency records, mental health problems, or teen-age pregnancies by the age of eighteen.” But the remaining third developed into “competent, confident, and caring young adults.” They had attained academic, domestic, and social success—and they were always ready to capitalize on new opportunities that arose. A resilient child might have a strong bond with a supportive caregiver, parent, teacher, or other mentor-like figure. But another, quite large set of elements was psychological, and had to do with how the children responded to the environment. The resilient children had what psychologists call an “internal locus of control”: they believed that they, and not their circumstances, affected their achievements. The resilient children saw themselves as the orchestrators of their own fates. In fact, on a scale that measured locus of control, they scored more than two standard deviations away from the standardization group. One of the central elements of resilience, Bonanno has found, is perception: Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as an opportunity to learn and grow? “Events are not traumatic until we experience them as traumatic.” Werner found that resilient individuals were far more likely to report having sources of spiritual and religious support than those who weren’t. You can train people to better regulate their emotions, and the training seems to have lasting effects. Unfortunately, the opposite may also be true. “We can become less resilient, or less likely to be resilient,” Bonanno says. “We can create or exaggerate stressors very easily in our own minds. That’s the danger of the human condition.”
First gender identity disorder doctors certified in Japan The society eventually hopes to make the cost of hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery, which is currently fully shouldered by the patients, covered by national health insurance.
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